Kissing Lightning
by Lila2
Summary: For Dusty, the key to Lucy's soul is in her eyes.


Title: "Kissing Lightening"  
  
Author: Lila  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
'Ship: LUSTY all the way!!!  
  
Length: post-episode one-shot for 7/21/04  
  
Summary: For Dusty, Lucy's eyes are the key to her soul  
  
Author's Note:  
  
This is my first Lusty story, so go easy. I wrote some Katie/Simon fanfic WAY back when they first got together, so I've written ATWT before. I just started watching again after very long hiatus, so please play nice if I make some mistakes with the characters' history. Also, I don't know Grayson McCouch's eye color, but it looks light on the show so I'm going with that. Sorry if I'm wrong. Hope you enjoy!  
  
"Little girl standing, and I'm so alone.  
  
Little girl whispers, stranger come home.  
  
Sad little eyes, so much to say.  
  
Oh what a game, little girls play and it must be,  
  
Wrong to love you like I do. It must be,  
  
Wrong to love you like I do."  
  
- "Wrong to Love You," Chris Isaak  
  
She'd left and he hadn't watched her go.  
  
He knew she'd wanted him to watch her, felt the frustrated burn of her gaze against his back, but he couldn't look. So he'd waited, even though he knew she was watching him with determined blue eyes, waited until he heard the door slam shut and Lucinda's lecture drone out, and finally turned his head. He told himself it was easier this way, that she wouldn't disappoint him, that he'd be able to let her go if he didn't have to see it--because he knew he wouldn't be able to look into those bright eyes and watch her walk out of his life, even if only for a little while. Because they all left eventually, even when they didn't want to.  
  
Not that he was surprised. He wasn't exactly the kind of man women spun dreams for, not the kind of prince who rode a white horse and saved damsels in distress. At least not anymore. It was a lifetime since he was young and foolish and thought he and Lily Walsh would be together forever. A lifetime since people used words like "good" and "nice" and "sweet" to describe the boy he once was. A lifetime since a woman had touched him without a pang of regret.   
  
He remembered how it used to be, when Lily could look at him without revulsion glazing her eyes, when Lucinda would greet him with a smile and a kiss and glare at Holden across the lawn. He remembered light and laughter and innocent kisses and dancing at the Country Club with the moonlight in their hair. And he remembered when it changed, when he and John lost contact, when his father disappeared and the money dried up. He'd been a child, barely more then a boy, and his entire life died before his eyes. He'd been destined for one path his entire life and hadn't known what to do when he'd veered so sharply off course. So he'd chosen another path, another life, and had spent the next fifteen years chasing darkness and shadows, police and mobsters, and gradually the light began to fade.   
  
When he looked at himself now he saw a ghost of the boy he once was, a far different man wearing the same face, anger and guilt replacing innocence and youth. He couldn't image the man he'd become caressing Lily's soft curves, blood-stained hands tainting Oakdale's perfect princess. Only it wasn't her title, not anymore, not when there was fresh Walsh blood to take her place. Young blood, just eighteen and barely legal, long-limbed and smooth skinned and dangerous...too dangerous.   
  
Who would have thought something so pristine and untouched would be the one thing he feared most? Not a bullet cutting through his chest and stealing his breath, or a thin trickle of blood sliding down his throat along with a last thread of hope. Instead it was a girl with dreams in her eyes and youth in her veins and a future in her heart. Lucy had a chance to do something right with her life--and she didn't need him dragging her down. He'd been where she was and he knew how easily it was to take the wrong turn, make the wrong decision, and spend the rest of his life running from the past. He wanted more for her, more then what he had for himself.  
  
But as usual, she didn't listen. She never listened, and if he dug deep inside himself, he could admit it was part of what he liked so much about her--her spirit, wild and free, still pure. He could see it in her eyes when she looked at him, blue locking with gray. He'd asked her to trust him and she'd said she did. But he knew better, knew actions counted far more then words slipping off her gilded tongue. He hadn't believed a word she said until he looked into her eyes and saw the hope and trust and faith he remembered from his own youth, back when he still believed those things existed.   
  
Had Lily ever looked at him like that? Had she ever trusted him like that, even way back when he was still a sweet, rich boy she could bring home to Lucinda? Had she ever believed in him, not who she wanted him to be, but who he was? He couldn't remember and it wasn't just the years catching up with him. Back then it hadn't mattered, back then he'd viewed life through a veil of innocence and youth, but now, watching life clearly through jaded eyes, he knew Lily had never been his, not really, not while Holden Snyder was around. But Lucy...she looked at him like no other man had ever existed. She saw him, the real him, and she still wanted him, jagged edges and all.  
  
She looked at him like he was perfect, like he had all the right answers, except he was far from perfect. He was torn and broken, like shards of glass scratching holes in his soul. And he knew if she kept prodding, kept pushing, someday she'd cut herself, sharp and deep, and there'd be no going back. One day it would end and she'd walk away with scars on her heart, thick and deep and never fully healed, and he would know it was because of him that Oakdale's perfect princess wasn't whole anymore. He couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't let that happen. Wasn't that what he'd said, that it didn't matter how he felt? Because it didn't matter, not anymore. It had been fifteen years since he'd done the right thing, that he'd put another person before himself--and if he was going to keep doing it, even when it was the last thing he wanted. Even when it wasn't wrong.  
  
But of course Lucy, in her Lucy way, made things difficult. He'd called her a princess, told her she was the last thing he wanted, but she'd called his bluff. He'd tried every trick in the book to push her away, but she'd refused to back down--because she knew him, deep inside where no woman had been since Lily Walsh. Hell, where no woman had ever been. And he'd known it the moment tilted her stubborn chin and steeled her eyes and kissed him, hard and fast and hot.  
  
He'd kissed lots of women before, even lots of Walsh women--but none like that. Kissing Lily had been like fine champagne, cool and dry against his lips, breeding and class and perfection in his arms. Rose had tasted like cold beer and warm smoke, slot machines and red lipstick and brassy woman against his chest. But Lucy...Lucy had been like kissing lightening, like heat spreading through his gut, sparks lighting everywhere she touched him. She'd felt right, her face cradled between his palms and her hair caressing his skin like liquid silk. She was different then the others, even without the weight of experience crafting her kiss. And he knew why--because she believed in him, because when her lips melted against his it was him she was kissing, not the dream of what he could be. He'd never wanted to let her go.  
  
But then it had ended and Lucinda had arrived and she'd walked away and he hadn't watched her go--he hoped she never came back. Because he knew the next time she came back he wouldn't be able to let her go and she had to walk out of his life, she had to save herself, before his heart got the good of him and he walked out of her. Even if she believed in him. Even if he didn't want to let her go.   
  
What do you think? 


End file.
